ABS/ Brake light Question

[MassHoe04]

@MassHoe04, the crud had built up on the surface of the caliper pistons and when they were collapsed to make room for the pads they damaged the square cut seal surface. The square cut seal is designed to twist in the lip bore, where it is mounted inside that caliper bore, and it will twist when you apply pressure and the piston moves and when you release the brake pedal, that twist is supposed to pull the piston back and allow for the pads to move back and have rotor surface clearance. Your piston crud and seal age combined to cause that problem.

Did the brake pedal fade and float to floor as well? thankfully you replaced fluid with the new calipers, it was over heated during that fiasco. When brake pads get that hot, you are lucky the friction material even held to the backing plate after all that heat. Did the rear brakes make noise after that? I would expect the overheated rotors to cause a noise.

I did a full fluid change. No fade or floor action. No noises. I let everything air cool, even though I was tempted to put water on to prevent a fire from erupting. Pads and brakes were all OK.

Stopping power was good. Just a slight pedal pulse on the rotors. Not terrible. Just a bit.

I was VERY lucky. Better yet, I have learned a lot in the process...

Kids: Never let brake pads wear to the end over ten years like the PO of mine did.
New pads push the pistons back in to the beginning of the cylinder. Keeps it all in shape in the process.

 

[OR VietVet]

I did a full fluid change. No fade or floor action. No noises. I let everything air cool, even though I was tempted to put water on to prevent a fire from erupting. Pads and brakes were all OK.

Stopping power was good. Just a slight pedal pulse on the rotors. Not terrible. Just a bit.

I was VERY lucky. Better yet, I have learned a lot in the process...

Kids: Never let brake pads wear to the end over ten years like the PO of mine did.
New pads push the pistons back in to the beginning of the cylinder. Keeps it all in shape in the process.

I would be aware that the fluid got real hot and could have damaged brake hoses as well.

 

[MassHoe04]

I would be aware that the fluid got real hot and could have damaged brake hoses as well.

Yeah. I did a pretty good inspection. I was surprised at how little heat transfer there appeared to have been. I was fearing melted axle seals, bearings, and other potential damage.

I was glad to see everything inside still looked good to me.
Hoses didn't appear to be damaged. Still flexible, not cracks or burns.
This was 10 months ago and everything still looking good.

Like I said, I think I got really lucky on what happened vs. what could have happened.

 

[Doubeleive]

This is what I'm leaning towards. It hasn't come back on in 2 days. Its all over the place.

I can't solder worth a crap. If I were to buy a reman, does it require a re-flash?

And, it looks like a pain to remove (blindly). Is that the only way it comes out?

to answer this, no flashing required, the part number just has to match the old one 100%
so you could just give the last 8 of your vin to any gm dealer parts department and ask what the part number is
or you could hook a tech2 and presuming the module is working at the time it will tell you the part number
or you could pull it out and look at it.

 

[OR VietVet]

I looked and a reman unit, if you have Active Brake Control or Traction Control, is not available at RA but can get at Genuine GM Parts and at Parts Direct, if I remember right. Pricey.

 

[Doubeleive]

I looked and a reman unit, if you have Active Brake Control or Traction Control, is not available at RA but can get at Genuine GM Parts and at Parts Direct, if I remember right. Pricey.

ya a new one if you can find it is like $600, actually it might be more like $1000-1200 I know it was freaking outrageous

 

[Blk00ss]

I’ll go back to front driver caliper (where mishap was) and inspect. But again, could this be causing our lights to come on? I’ve already checked that calipera few times since all this, and there are no visible leaks, and the brakes work very well. It’s been probably a month ago since brake job and these lights started last week. I can replace the caliper if that’s needed, but I’m trying to determine what the issue is that’s causing our lights to kick on. Can a leak actually make the ABS/ brake light come on? And if it is leaking, its gotta be awfully small. No signs of fluid at all. Not even when I disassembled. And we’re not losing fluid from reservoir

Also, I went to oReilly and had them scan. They tried, but nothing. Employee said he was pretty sure their scanner only scanned for engine codes and evap which he did get an evap code because I have one of the lines disconnected from the charcoal canister currently.

 

[OR VietVet]

You need to get brake codes scanned with correct scanner and report back. At this point, you are guessing and that can be costly. You can also attempt to unplug the sensors and plug back in. Sometimes this cleans the connections.

 

[Blk00ss]

I wou

You need to get brake codes scanned with correct scanner and report back. At this point, you are guessing and that can be costly. You can also attempt to unplug the sensors and plug back in. Sometimes this cleans the connections.

I would do that, but both places I've taken it to plug in and all it gives is my evap code which I already know what it is. No brake codes at all

Does anyone know of a decent scanner that'll pull brake codes? I'd buy one, been meaning to anyways. Don't really wanna spend a ton though. When I look at them online it most say it'll pull brake codes from MOST 1996 vehicles up. This is what autozone's does as well. Tahoe isn't rare, so don't really understand why it wouldn't pull ABS from an '05 Tahoe, but this makes me hesitant to go buy one since it may not work for this vehicle.

 

[Blk00ss]

UPDATE....I pulled the front driver caliper where I had my issue during the brake job. I had my son get in and push the brake pedal so I could see if both pistons moved freely without leaking fluid. We did not get any fluid to leak, but what I did find is one of the pistons moved outward as it should, but the other does not. I'm going to assume this is not correct, and that pistons should move together. I'm also assuming this may be causing my lights because maybe its sensing a lack of pressure in one of the 4 corners?

Does anyone feel like I'm on the right track here?